In psychological reactance theory (PRT), Brehm (1966) proposed that people generally don't like being told what to do – having freedoms removed results in psychological reactance, which motivates freedom restoration. Just like when I tell my toddler he can't have a cookie that he really wants, he wants it even more. Our work on PRT stems from a highly-cited review piece (Rosenberg & Siegel, 2018) that called for renewed examination of the motivational impacts of reactance.

Expectation disruption theory (EDT; nee goal disruption theory; Siegel, 2013; Rosenberg & Siegel, 2015) is rooted in the work of Tolman (1932); it proposes that violations of people's expectations result in disequilibrium and, sometimes, disruption. A state of disruption causes a host of interrelated changes in people's motivation, emotion, cognition, and behavior. EDT also proposes that a variety of factors will predict whether a given situation will cause a disruption – or will be relatively ignored. We apply this approach to understand a range of behaviors that are often considered irrational, instead noting that they are more likely goal-directed.